Gray Limits
by idyllsea
Summary: War spares no one. As the battle against the Dark Lord drags on, Hermione Granger must come to terms with how much the war has changed her, with help from an unexpected source - Draco Malfoy.


Rated M for language, violence (for now).

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Harry Potter.

The story: The epic battle at Hogwarts never happened like it did in the books. Instead, Harry and co. returned to Hogwarts and were able to free the castle of Voldemort's hold. But Voldemort did not retaliate by attacking the school immediately, and the current war in the story escalated from here. Hogwarts became the stronghold of Harry Potter, while Malfoy Manor became Voldemort's base. Voldemort has possession of the Elder Wand. Harry Potter has the Resurrection Stone and Invisibility Cloak.

Note: The story may seem a little strange and broad at first, but I promise everything and (most) everyone will have a meaning for Rowling's characters.

Chapter 1

Parelov Manor

London, England

Hermione Granger took in the damage surrounding her with a critical eye. A dozen or so with paltry injuries, two with broken bones. Most importantly, no fatalities. A truly successful mission. She tightened her grip on the file of papers clutched in her hand. Considering the sensitive nature of the information they had been after, such an outcome was close to miraculous. She'd expected to give up a few lives in exchange for Voldemort's attack plans on Cardiff.

The heavy crunch of gravel behind her heralded someone's approach. "We did well." Seamus Finnegan appeared at her side, dropping a hand on her shoulder. His normally lyrical Irish lilt was raspy, most likely due to the thick haze of smoke that hovered over the impromptu battlefield that had once been the ornately decorated driveway of the Parelov Manor. The left side of his face was covered in blood, which trickled from under the heavy fringe of his hair, but otherwise he appeared unharmed.

She smiled tiredly in response. "We did, didn't we?" The last of the wild adrenaline that had kept her going through the night fizzled out, leaving a profound feeling of exhaustion, as well as the clarity to switch her mind to other tasks. Taking a handkerchief out the pocket of her jeans, she turned towards him and reached up to lift the dark red strands falling into his moss-green eyes. There was a long, shallow cut streaking across the left side of his forehead, the edges of the wound charred and raw. The bloody sight no longer drew any reaction of horror or disgust from her. The aversion to blood was one of the first things combat stripped away – there was simply no room for a queasy stomach when lives were on the line. Plus, Seamus's cut was trivial – they'd both seen and dealt worse just the day before. She whispered a quick spell to dampen the cloth, and then began dabbing at the edges of the cut to clean it.

Seamus chuckled exasperatedly, catching her wrist in his hand. "It's nothing, Hermione, I just got a bit careless with Pucey." She swatted his hand casually, and Seamus dropped it without further preamble, knowing that, as usual, he wasn't going to win. It was almost a ritual for her, patching him up after skirmishes like this, and he wouldn't deny his partner the comfort of the routine. "The little fuck got away while I was wiping the blood out of me eyes."

"Most of them did. They started apparating out after Pike fired off his new spell, but we managed to catch one. I think he's new, keeps blathering on about how the Dark Lord will come to avenge him."

"Still naïve. Wonder when that starts to wear off. What d'you plan on doing with the little bugger?" Satisfied the cut was as clean as could be, Hermione stepped back, and flicked her wand. A thin stream of delicate gold sparks snaked out of the tip and settled into the small gash, pulling the edges in to speed up the healing process. Seamus winced a little at the tight, stretching sensation, and out of instinct, raised his hand to rub at the area. And out of habit, Hermione's hand darted up to slap his away.

"Don't touch it. Remus said to take him to the Dunanshire house, try and see if there's anything we can get out of him. If he knows anything, Moody wants us to keep him for questioning until he gets back from Cardiff base."

"So, do we take him now?"

"We don't. I've got Susan and Neville on it. They'll be leaving in five."

"And where will we be?"

"You'll be in debrief and planning. Ron's received word on a possible rest house near London, wants to check it out."

"Work, work, work. I just want one fucking day to sleep."

Though he tried to pass it off as a jest, Hermione could pick out the subtle thread of desperation lacing his voice. It was the same desperation that permeated everything nowadays. The war had been stretching on for nearly five years now, and was clearly taking its toll. Hundreds were dead on both sides, along with thousands who had never even declared a side. Funerals had long been done away with – nowadays, a quick cremation and a shot of firewhiskey late at night was the highest respect that could be given to the dearly departed. The Order had lost countless, both bright talents and obscure recruits. Just last week, Dean Thomas had been killed in a flash battle in Muggle London, along with ten others. Cho Chang's younger sister had been abducted by Snappers – bands of disillusioned men who then sold their captives to willing clients in exchange for protection or drugs. And two young wizards had defected to the Dark side – Seamus had killed one yesterday, and the other was now one leg short, courtesy of her Sectumsempra.

The problem with the war was that it wasn't just the Light versus the Dark, not just The Chosen One versus the Dark Lord. No, the battle lines were much more blurred and the situation much more twisted. The Muggle world was fully cognizant of the supernatural clash that had seized Britain – the battle that led to the destruction of the Parliament building had effectively blown the cover of Wizarding London. Most non-magic folk had luckily gotten out of the country before the war had truly escalated. The Muggle population of the world had essentially written Britain off as lost territory, unable to comprehend, even after five years, that magic existed. The Ministry of Magic had been dismantled and demolished within the first three months of the war, so there was no established authority in the land save for the Order and Voldemort. While many had thrown their lot with one or the another, a good number of people were neutral, looking out first and only for themselves. Hermione couldn't find it in herself to hate or judge them, especially when considering just how deadly and unpredictable this war was. Distrust and vigilance was the law of the land.

Neither side had achieved anything close to a solid upper hand. Just when the balance seemed to tip one way, the other side would have a counterbalance to right it again. Spies were everywhere, little leeches who sold information to the highest bidder. Entrance to any Order meeting required taking Veritaserum, followed by speaking a personalized passcode into a clever orb Luna had designed, and finally by submitting to Legilimens from that same orb. Merlin only knew how the Death Eaters planned their security nowadays. Ever since Severus Snape had been caught by a stray probe from Voldemort two years ago, it had been impossible to get another spy as far into the echelons. Fortunately, Severus had escaped with his life, and the Order had discovered a spy in their midst as well. Amanda Pierce had not been as lucky as Severus.

"So, I'll be at base. Where're you going?"

"Planning with Adrien, checking in on the Ouiletts, and rounding it off by going to Dunanshire to make sure our new friend is properly settled in."

"Damn, that's going to take a while."

"I should be back by midday."

"You should take the rest of the day off. You've hardly been at base for the past three days, love." Seamus murmured, brushing his hand over her hair. "You've dropped weight again too." He fitted his hands on her hips, brushing his thumbs over her bones through her trousers. It wasn't a sexual gesture, nor an advance. In all honesty, most physical contact these days was to prove that you were still alive, that you were still whole, with the luxury to feel and appreciate such things. The reminder that there were people who cared for her, who worried whether she lived or died, eased some of the weariness from her body and soul. She stepped towards Seamus, wrapping her arms tightly around his middle. His own followed suit a heartbeat later, and the simple heat of the connection reinforced the significance of what they all were fighting for.

She pulled away reluctantly, fisting her hands in his shirt. "Thanks, Seamus. I needed that." Seamus tipped her chin up and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.

"You can pay me back with pancakes for dinner tonight," he answered with an impudent grin. "Deal?"

Seamus's love for Muggle breakfast foods was legendary, and he had quickly amassed a growing cult in the Order who shared his passion. As a result, every safe house and home base was constantly stocked with abnormal amounts of pancake batter, eggs, bread and cereals. And one day in the pursuit of pancakes, Seamus had stolen a bite from the stack she'd made herself for breakfast, and an obsession was born. Since then, every deal was signed in pancakes, and the familiarity of it brought an answering grin to her face. "Deal."

She turned on her heel and apparated with a sharp crack.

Adrien's Colony

Nord-Trønderlag, Norway

The disorientation of long-distance apparition had her seeing white, but years of practice had her bowing her head and shaking it a few times to clear it. She rubbed her eyes with her palms to drive off the residual dizziness. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to a wall of dark brown. She frowned and took a step back, and the wall materialized into six feet and four inches of Nordic vampire. Leather and fur clad Nordic vampire, at that. Hermione snorted at the blatant and utterly unnecessary display of alpha-male, an obvious throw-back to his human days.

"You're late." Soren flicked a cursory glance at her smoky, muddy appearance. "And you're tracking dirt all over the floor."

Hermione shrugged and moved to brush past him. "It's practically dirt anyway."

"Right." He took a firm hold of her chin with one hand, and licked the pad of his thumb. Pulling her closer, he rubbed at a dark spot on the tip of her nose. She let out a choked, shocked noise of affront. Her nose wrinkled, and her hands darted up to slap at his own.

"Soren!" He grinned at her distress as the soot vanished under his thumb.

"Don't be such a prude." Satisfied with his work, he released her chin and grasped her face between his hands. He yanked her onto her toes and pressed a smacking kiss on the tip of her nose. "There, all clean."

She was already back on her feet, swaying a little, her now wet nose just beginning to tingle from the cold when she realized what he'd done. Running on instinct, she snarled, and balled her fist, slamming it hard – yet as ever, ineffectually - into his chest, while she shoved at the hand that had settled at her waist. "You little bastard!" It never failed to infuriate her - the irreverent disregard for personal space and social etiquette that seemed innate to all these vampires. Part of her response, she knew, was due to cold, hard fear from having them close to her. She knew better than most that the inhabitants of this frozen, remote lodge were not human, that they no longer followed the basic rules of engagement that kept the relative peace between two individuals, but it was times like this that her mantra of 'constant vigilance' was sent flying out the window of her sanity.

Soren released her with a chuckle, but as she growled and pushed past him, he couldn't refrain from having the last word. He grabbed her elbow and slid behind her, making sure that he caught the unblinking gaze of his brother watching them from across the hall. Soren bent his head and whispered theatrically, "Ah, my little witch, bastard I may be, but you of all people should know there's nothing little about me, no?" He pressed himself lewdly against her back, his tongue darting out to lap at her cheekbone.

Fury bloomed in her heart at his brazen implication. Vampire hearing was notoriously sharp, and she could see that Soren's not-so-quiet retort had some near the back of hall sneering and even outright flashing their fangs at her. Granted, she was no blushing virgin – a half-crazed, half-blind fumble in the dark with Seamus after a personal encounter with Voldemort had seen to that early in the war, and she liked to think she had a reasonably healthy sex drive. But to cheapen her before the entire colony, especially in front of some of the more untrustworthy and unsympathetic members who were not-so-secretly gunning to sever ties with the Order, was not only personally humiliating, but also potentially dangerous to her side of their pact. Soren, though high in the echelon when it came to age and power, was also the most polarizing member of Adrien's colony. It was no secret that he hated Adrien, no secret that given the chance, Soren would kill Adrien without a second's hesitation. It was thus lost upon her why Adrien, cognizant of the threat, had tolerated and even elevated his younger brother to second-in-command. Despite the trust implied in the title, most considered Soren an outsider and sought to usurp his authority. And though she'd only been in contact with Adrien's band for a few months now, she'd seen enough of the colony mindset and dynamic to know that an intimate association with Soren, especially in her position as an envoy, was deadly.

Desperate, then, to salvage some face, Hermione whirled around to see Soren's smug smirk. She narrowed her eyes, and wriggled her right hand slightly. The moderately-sized stylized phoenix pendant of the silver necklace Harry and Ron had given her for her birthday slid into her hand. She'd begun looping it around her wrist for safekeeping and safety during battles, after Fenrir Greyback had transfigured Isabelle Crowley's slender gold necklace into a noose and strangled her from his broom nearly a year ago. The light yet firm feel of the angles and curves of the phoenix brought a sense of comfort as well as determination. Taking a deep breath, she set her hastily-composed plan into action, and allowed her lips to slide into a seductive smile of promise. "Really? I seem to have forgotten. Maybe you could remind me?"

The smirk on his face melted into a leer of sheer glee. "You want to do a public show? Dirty girl." He stepped closer, and his unique aroma of pine and leather surrounded her. No hint of sickly sweet decay – he'd fed recently. The knowledge empowered her – it would make her plan much easier if he was in the mood to play. In return, she slowly reached up with her left hand for his face. Cradling his cheek, she pulled him down to her. His gaze widened, and then dropped to her lips. She upped the act by releasing a soft, shaky breath against his lips, and then bit her lip. His pupils dilated, overwhelming the green-gold of his irises, and the delicate blood vessels in his eyes surged to the surface. The gleam of white fang protruding from between his lips was the final sign that she'd undeniably aroused his baser side.

She struck quickly and without hesitation. She swung her right hand up, palm open, and slammed the silver pendant against his cheek, using the leverage of her other hand to press as deeply as she could.

His reaction was instantaneous. A guttural sound erupted from his throat, somewhere between a pained howl and an enraged growl. The flesh beneath her hand grew fire-hot, and she felt the skin sizzle and bubble for a heartbeat before he jerked away, doubling over and clutching a hand to his face.

Ignoring the blood that now coated her hand from where the sharp edges of the pendant had dug into his skin, she hissed, "Don't fuck around with me, Soren." She watched as he gasped and panted for a few more moments, before abruptly straightening, his hand dropping from his face.

The worst of the burn had already healed, to her dismay, but a raised, dark outline of the Order's phoenix symbol remained, and would for at least a few days. The small victory was worth anything he would dish out in retaliation. Or almost, she amended, as something quailed in her at the fulminating fury in his over-bright eyes. She steeled herself, focusing on the stance of his body and the feel of her wand holster strapped to her arm. But the emotion suddenly fled, and something different, softer and more enigmatic, darkened his gaze. And then suddenly a wide, proud grin broke out on his face.

To say she was flabbergasted was an understatement. In her brief time with Adrien's colony, she'd never seen such a bizarre display of bipolarity. "What the hell are you smiling for?"

"There's my girl," he said, brushing flakes of burned skin from his shoulders as he swaggered towards her.

"Sod off, Soren." She turned only to crash into yet another vampire. It took every ounce of her willpower not to shriek in frustration. "What is this, a double act?" She took a step back and tilted her head back to meet the gaze of the latest obstacle in her path.

Adrien's starkly beautiful face was impassive as ever, save for the miniscule elevation of one dark eyebrow and the slight tilt of his lips. The difference in personality between him and his brother was astounding – where Soren took impulsiveness and whim to an extreme, Adrien was the opposite, the very definition of stoic.

"Don't give me that look. It's been a hellish night, and I just want to get this over and get some sleep."

"Ever the bitch," said Soren fondly from behind. He playfully tugged at her high ponytail. She painfully stomped on his toes with her boot.

"Only when the company requires it," she retorted, slipping out from between the two brothers to make her way to the enormous round table that dominated Adrien's meeting hall. The monolithic piece, twenty-five feet in diameter, was composed of a basin of dark stone topped with a thick layer of teak wood, and surrounded by fifty high-backed, fur-draped wooden chairs. The inner fifteen or so feet had been carved out to create an open space one could enter by a small opening in the table towards the back of the hall, to the right of Adrien's seat.

As the colony's guest of honor, Hermione's seat was to Adrien's left. The alliance with the Nordic vampires had been both her and Luna's idea, born out of wild hope and fervent research after Voldemort had successfully enticed a majority of the British Goblins – famed for their cunning and skills as deadly ironsmiths - to his side. Desperate for allies, the Order had tasked Hermione's notoriously efficient intelligence team to find groups who could be sympathetic to the Light.

Three weeks of long days and endless nights had so far proven useless, and tensions were beginning to rise. The final week before the deal was made, a record number of defections were reported, making up a list that contained some surprising names. Mundungus Fletcher had been taken for granted as a Phoenix, despite possessing a sense of loyalty with the consistency of water. It was a shock then to see him standing next to Antonin Dolohov one cloudless January night, a shameless sneer on his pocked face as he pointed his wand heavenward to cast the Dark Mark. But that betrayal had not hurt as much as Anthony Goldstein's had. Anthony had been the optimistic and charismatic captain of one of their best patrols, and had proposed to Annabeth Teece just a few weeks prior to his exposure. He was also one of the top strategists for the Order.

It was midafternoon when they faced him across a deserted London square. The ensuing battle lasted until dawn, when the remnants of the Light were finally able to stage a successful escape. Only half of the hundred-strong force that had apparated into Trafalgar Square that afternoon returned. The other half was never recovered, as the Death Eaters threw the dead to the ogres and Weres. As far as the most frightening nights of her life went, that one ranked close to first. Seeing spells that she'd created to protect her friends now being used against them, watching the Dark forces tear through protective spells and barriers with no effort – for the first time, she'd really considered defeat. She'd pondered the possibility before, but her own optimism and survival instinct had always evicted the thought. But that night, staring at the point of Adrien Pucey's wand as it began to glow red before her eyes, glancing up to see his utterly bored, blank face, the crushing sensation of powerlessness had drowned her, rendering her hands numb and her voice mute. It was Seamus's timely tackle that saved her life.

The staggering loss had thrown the Order into a furious disorder that was not quelled until Annabeth herself walked into headquarters a week later with Anthony's broken wand in her hand and his blood on her face, dripping from her hair and smeared across her mouth. The wild grief and quiet determination warring in her eyes was all the Order needed to rediscover its purpose, and the eerily vampiric look of her was all that Hermione and Luna had needed to find the solution.

The existence of the vampire colony hidden away in the icy barrenness of Norway had first been recorded by a Christian monk in the early twelfth century. Since then, information had been sparse until the Norwegian Ministry had been formed in the nineteenth century. The Norwegian magical community had a history of stark separation from Muggles, and their Ministry embodied this secretive and exclusive mindset. As a result, the Ministry encouraged many witches and wizards to settle in their own towns and settlements far from Muggle dwellings. One of the largest of these towns was planned not ten miles from Adrien's nest.

To the Norwegian Ministry's credit, it only took twenty deaths in the fledgling community for them to realize the obvious threat of living so near to an unusually large vampire colony. The Ministry quickly met with and hashed out what Hermione saw as a ghastly agreement with Adrien. Wizards would leave the vampires alone, and Adrien would submit a record of the number of vampires in his keep every ten years. In return for not preying on the Wizarding communities of Norway, the Ministry would supply and maintain a population of Muggles at Adrien's keep.

The first time she had seen the small village of Muggles tucked behind the south face of the keep, the first time she'd been told of the purpose of that village, she'd drawn her wand on Adrien in disgust, firing a neat Sectumsempra. Naturally, the preternaturally fast vampire had dodged and snatched her wand away before she could blink in response. Without a hint of emotion on his face, he'd stepped before her and shamelessly offered her wand back.

"I realize you don't particularly care for my kind," he'd said passionlessly, in that oddly accented voice of his. It sounded like a mix of fluency in ten different languages, resulting in strange pauses and stresses. "That is good, because I don't particularly care for your kind either. However, Miss Granger," he continued, stepping closer and blocking out the torchlight behind him, "you are here to entice me to become your ally. I would thus advise you to refrain from firing your little twig at me and mine. Next time, I will kill you."

The reminder of the precariousness of her situation had Hermione biting back a retort as she took her wand back. Since then, she'd forced herself to ignore the grislier aspects of colony life, convincing herself it was for the good of the war effort.

The scrape of a chair against the floor caught her attention. Adrien was seating himself next to her, and the act was a signal to the rest of the vampires in the room. For a few seconds, the hall was filled with the screech of chairs and the dying vestiges of conversation. Then, there was silence, eerie, preternaturally still silence as the vampires all turned to her.

"Let's begin," Adrien said.


End file.
